In a known way, a tire has to meet a large number of often conflicting technical requirements, including a high wear resistance, a low rolling resistance and both a high dry grip and a high wet grip.
This compromise in properties, in particular from the viewpoint of the rolling resistance and the grip, was able to be improved in recent years with regard to energy-saving Green Tires, intended in particular for passenger vehicles, by virtue in particular of the use of novel weakly hysteretic rubber compositions having a characteristic of being reinforced predominantly with specific inorganic fillers, described as reinforcing, in particular of highly dispersible silicas, referred to as “HDS” (Highly Dispersible Silica), capable of rivalling, from the viewpoint of the reinforcing power, conventional tire-grade carbon blacks.
Improving the wet grip properties of tires remains, however, a constant preoccupation of designers of tires.